


Open My Eyes, I See Sky

by AlwaysLera



Category: Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Aftermath, F/M, Friendship, Love Confessions, Secret Marriage, Team, Team Dynamics, Team Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-09
Updated: 2013-01-09
Packaged: 2017-11-24 08:08:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/632279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlwaysLera/pseuds/AlwaysLera
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Loki and Thor return to Asgard, Clint disappears in the middle of the night. Against her instincts, Natasha decides not to use her considerable talents, assets, and resources to chase him down. He needs to level out, she tells herself, it'll take time. So why is she the one feeling offbalance?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Story title comes from Sky by Joshua Radin (feat. Ingrid Michaelson) which is an awesome song and I highly recommend it.

“So?” asked Tony, sitting down next to her and reaching across to steal the sugar bowl from the space in front of Natasha. She kept her head down, reading the news, but her spoon paused in her oatmeal. Tony was learning her subtle signs—and good lord they were subtle—that she was listening and allowing him to continue. He kept his voice deliberately casual. “Where is he, Natasha?”

Natasha didn’t miss a beat. “I don’t know, Tony. Stop asking me.”

“If you knew, would you tell us?”

Natasha looked up, her face smooth and quiet. “I don’t know the answer to that.”

He paused, struggling to match her tone. “Well. I guess I should thank you for your sincerity which is ever surprising from a spy who kills people with her thighs.”

She shrugged, like she didn’t think he believed her, and went back to reading the Russian paper in front of her, her spoon carefully slicing into the oatmeal and every spoonful was brought slowly, and carefully up to her lips. The door opened and Tony glanced at it while drawing up his own news on his tablet next to his bowl of cereal. He didn’t miss the way that Natasha’s eyes swung up and to the door, the way her spoon paused and hovered above the hot cereal, the way her right hand paused halfway through turning a page before smoothly continuing. Steve walked in like he didn’t notice, but when Natasha went back to reading, Steve turned at the sink and pointed at her, mouthing to Tony, _She thought I was him._

Tony gave an incremental nod of his head.

“I know you’re talking about me,” Natasha said quietly. She stood up, folding her newspaper and tucking it under her arm. She picked up her cereal and began to walk out of the kitchen.

Steve was the one who blanched, not Tony. “Nat—“

“Don’t,” she snapped sharply. “Don’t call me that.”

And she was gone.

Steve let out a long exhale. He looked at Tony and said, “He’s only been gone two weeks.”

“Maybe it’ll get easier,” Tony suggested, his eyes watching the door where Natasha had gone.

Steve gave him a doubtful look. He turned back to the sink and filled a cup with water to put in the microwave. He said, with his back still turned to Tony, “Trust me. It never gets easier.”

_______

“So, any idea where SHIELD sent Clint?” asked Bruce quietly to Natasha one day.

She was using his lab as a quiet place to do some of her linguistic analysis homework for SHIELD. She had a dozen papers spread in front of her. Someone had put some interesting information hidden in what looked like programming language. Naturally, because it was both an obscure language and an obscure programming language, Natasha had been given the job of decrypting what a computer could not do. In some ways, Bruce found it mesmerizing to watch her work. He couldn’t deny that Natasha was a beautiful woman and a woman who had a healthy respect for what the Other Guy was but worked incredibly hard to help Bruce keep in touch with himself whenever he needed to, and then come back to himself when he needed to after a mission. She taught herself a great deal of physics just so she could have the conversation she wanted to have to ask him if his lab could also be her office when she was avoiding Tony and Steve.

He loved to watch her work, though he’d never tell her that. She came to ‘the office’ without putting herself together. She never wore makeup and sometimes her hair was tangled. She wore yoga pants and Chicago Cubs tshirts that he suspected were actually Clint’s and she sat perched in chairs, her chin resting on her knee while she studied everything laid out in front of her.

She looked young, and vulnerable, and real, which was the opposite of everything she appeared outside of ‘the office’. Bruce liked to tell himself that he was seeing the real Natasha. And in those moments, he knew why someone like Clint would fall in love with her. Of course, those were only rumors from Hill who had raised her eyebrows when Bruce asked her why Natasha was written down as Clint’s emergency contact when SHIELD came looking for him.

_“You are a smart man, Dr. Banner,” Hill told him dryly. “When you have a man and a woman who were partners for twelve years now, and one of them looks like Natasha, and one of them looks like Clint, ask yourself that question again, and tell me what answer you come up with.”_

But Bruce didn’t think it had anything to do with looks. In the end, he thought, Natasha and Clint were cut from the same cloth. They both had the inability to understand the different between a want and a need, a misunderstanding that they were deserving of anything in the world, and the assurance that they were required to do penances for the sins of their pasts. Birds of a feather, as they said, flocked together. Natasha and Clint were just two birds with the same feathers. They flew well together. And Bruce could see why the Natasha in his lab would be a bird that Clint wanted to take under his wing. Unlike the Natasha in the field, the one in Bruce’s lab would maybe, in the quiet and privacy of a home, without prying eyes, allow herself to be under someone else’s wing, someone who was not her. 

Natasha blinked at the papers in front of her and looked up at him curiously. “I don’t think he’s with SHIELD.”

“So he’s still AWOL?” Bruce asked in confirmation, carefully noting a few results on his paper and refusing to make eye contact with her.

“As far as I know,” Natasha replied quietly. He heard papers rustling. “I keep telling myself that he needs this. He would respect me if I left. I will respect him that he left.”

Bruce glanced up at her and almost spilled his coffee all over his notebook. She looked a little lost, a little more vulnerable, a little worried. He said softly, “He’ll come back, Natasha.”

Natasha inhaled sharply and her gaze switched from lost in trance to sharp and focused. She looked back down at her work. Her tone was cool. “He is not like the rest of you. He requires distance from problems. It provides him a perspective. He is the best at what he does.”

_Running away? Sharpshooter? Sniper? Assassin? Your lover?_ Bruce wondered and decided to drop the topic. She looked a little murderous at the moment. He went back to running simulations on his computer and letting her work in peace.


	2. Chapter 2

Natasha rarely let herself get in these situations, but she was literally pinned to the wall by three knives and a dead man, and the person responsible was not someone on her side. A Romanian mobster, he was currently on the phone, directing his people against her people, while putting out cigarettes on her left forearm. She spat curses at him in Romanian, in Romani, in Russian, in Serbian, in French, in Chinese, in Swahili, in every language she could reach with her mind and her tongue cooperating together.

In her ear, in the earpiece that mobster was too stupid to take, she could hear Steve fighting his way down from the roof. Tony was busy dismantling the mobster’s robot army. Hulk was smashing and helping Tony. Thor was elsewhere (read also: Jane) and hadn’t answered the call that morning for backup. She was on her own for now.

The mobster turned and snapped at her in Romanian, “Tell me who sent you.”

It was hard to explain in any language that no one sent them, they just _came_. They weren’t there as SHIELD but as Avengers. So Natasha said the first thing that came to mind, a line from a movie she once watched with Clint. “If you build it, they will come.”

The mobster gave her a puzzled look and then there was the faint sound, familiar and heart wrenching in turns, the sound of glass shattering and the man dropped, gurgling, at her feet. Out of his back protruded a long black arrow. Natasha stared at the arrow, and then lifted her head, staring out the small hole in the window. There were a dozen buildings around them, all part of the mobster’s complex, but she didn’t see anyone on any rooflines. Not that she would expect to. He was too good at what he did. He was invisible and indivisible. Even Loki couldn’t take away his ability to take the impossible shot. He could have been anywhere out there.

When Steve shows up and frees her, she points to the arrow in the guy’s back before flying to the window, smashing out the excessive glass with her fist, and scanning every window edge, every curtain in the area, every blind, every roofline, every chimney, every rooftop airconditioning unit, anywhere. But her eyes found nothing.

Steve was next to her, looking around too. He said, “Where did he come from?”

“I have no idea,” Natasha answered honestly.

“You didn’t tell him that we’d be here.”

Natasha shook her head. “You all think that I am just protecting him, that we talk every night or something. But I haven’t heard from him in three months. Not since shawarma.”

Steve looked sideways at her. “How did he find you?”

She couldn’t answer that. She couldn’t answer the hope that flooded her when they got home. She ran into the building, ran up to her rooms, to his rooms, to the common areas. She searched every corridor, the highest places, the archery range, the gym, everywhere she could possibly think he’d be. She called his name desperately, unashamed as Tony, Bruce and Steve watched her with worried eyes, murmurs and whispers passing between them. She sank into her chair at the dining room table.

She looked at them and said honestly, her voice tight with emotion, “I thought maybe…maybe he was back.”

“I know,” Bruce said kindly, and he put the kettle on the stove for her, heating up water for her tea. He didn’t ask. He found her favorite tea, filled up the silver teaball that Tony had gotten for her in London, and put it in a Yes We Can! mug in front of her. They didn’t leave her alone that night, not until she had gone to sleep herself, on the couch, where Steve covered her with a blanket, and Tony ordered Jarvis to play her favorite white noise sound.

The guys exchanged looks when Jarvis answered quietly, “Of course, sir,” and then played the soft sound of rain.

_________

Natasha was jogging in Central Park when her cell rang. She pulled it out of her arm holster, glancing at the screen, and then she stopped dead in her track, staring at the picture of a helicopter crashing down in a desert. It was Maria Hill’s id photo on Natasha’s phone. Natasha signaled to Steve that she needed to take the call. He slowed, looking concerned.

“Richardson,” she answered curtly, using her public light cover name.

“Natasha, someone just coded into your safe house in Chicago,” Maria said swiftly, not even bothering to check in. Natasha could hear the sound of the wind and ocean behind her. Maria was out on the deck, where her conversation couldn’t be overheard. “Who else had the codes?”

“You,” said Natasha dully, her heart dropping to the bottom of her chest. “And Charlie.”

Charlie and Natalie Richardson were their cover names, on their driver’s licenses, on their house deeds and their car registrations. They were spies. They couldn’t afford to be like Steve or Bruce, recognized in a hero worship type of way. They needed to be largely untraceable. Natasha had twelve safe houses that she entered only as necessary, and three of those she kept with Clint and their names were on the property. One of them was in Chicago. It was also Clint’s least favorite house and his least favorite city to spend time in. If he was there, he would have to be there on a job. A job he took without SHIELD, without Natasha.

“We’re going to get a team to stop by.” Maria’s tone was entirely businesslike. “That house is no longer safe, Natasha. We need to bring him in.”

Natasha nodded even though Maria couldn’t see her. “I understand. Put it on the market after they clear it.”

“After they bring him in,” Maria corrected her.

Natasha looked up at the sky, squinting at the bright sun. She said quietly, “He won’t be there when you get there.”

There was a pause and Maria said softly, her tone gentle and warm, “You understand that even though you tell me that, I have to send them in. He’s considered off the map, Natasha. Any tips must be followed through.”

“I understand. And if you find him, call me. I want to be the first to punch him,” Natasha told her. Steve paused in his texting and frowned at her. Natasha shrugged at him.

“Then I’m second.” Maria sighed deeply and said, “It’s been four months, Natasha. If he’s not coming back, do you think he’ll tell you?”

Natasha didn’t know the answer to that question. She just stared at her shoes, at the faded laces, at the edges of the rubber around the sole that were beginning to separate. She went through shoes like any runner did, but this pair was sentimental. Clint had bought them for her after he accidentally discharged one of his explosive tipped arrows in their apartment just above the front door, effectively destroying all of the jackets and shoes they stored there. It had been only a few days after they had moved in together after years of bouncing between two different apartments and she had been out of sorts already at having him constantly in her space. She had thrown a fit, the interruption in her routine more upsetting than the sheer cost of replacing everything they lost. Clint had watched her, wide eyed, as she shrieked around the apartment. He hadn’t known what to do and a baffled Clint Barton was almost comical to see. She had collapsed in a puddle of frustrated tears. He had left the apartment, pissing her off further, only to return with a new pair of running shoes, chocolate, and a new door knob.

These were her, “I’m sorry I fucked up, Natasha” shoes. These were the shoes she wanted to run in. Some part of her had hoped since Prague that he was watching her, unsure how to come back down from the height he had found in his leaving. She had hoped he would see them, recognize them, and back to her. But he was, instead, in Chicago, fucking up the secrecy of their house, and proving that he was staying far away from her.

“Cheer up, woman,” Maria said quietly into the silence. “At least he’s alive and still in the country.”

“Small relief,” Natasha replied. She looked at the sky again, like he was going to appear. “I have to go, Maria.”

“I’ll call you,” Maria promised.

Natasha hung up and slid her phone back into its holder. She bent over, stretching her muscles. When she straightened, Steve was giving her an expectant look. Natasha said quietly, “He’s in Chicago.”

Steve looked delighted. “Good. Still alive and still around.”

Natasha gave him a faint smile. “Yeah. That’s what Hill said.”

Steve gave Natasha an appraising look and then checked his own phone. It had taken Tony the last five months to get Steve to carry it regularly and use it appropriately, but once Steve understood a concept, he was quick to adapt it. He shrugged. “We did ten miles. Why don’t we call it a day and grab some icecream?”

“It’s 9am,” Natasha frowned at him.

“Yeah. It is,” Steve agreed. He gave her a warm smile. “It’s 9am, it’s 85 degrees already because July in this city is the eighth circle of hell, and your boyfriend—“

“Husband,” Natasha cut in. Steve stared at her and Natasha shrugged, looking sideways. “In case either one of us died, it made things easier on SHIELD paperwork. If our bodies were recovered, we each wanted the other one to be able to bury us. And you know. Right of attorney and everything.”

“Right,” Steve answered faintly after a moment, and then he shook his head. “And your husband’s location was at least narrowed down for the first time in four months. I think you deserve some icecream.”

She couldn’t argue with his logic. They sat on a park bench, on the top of it with their feet on the seat, licking their cones and watching kids in strollers and families and joggers pass them. Natasha never really understood the American obsession with icecream, but she couldn’t argue that it did in fact make her feel better. And sticky fingers meant she didn’t check her phone every three seconds worrying she missed a call from Hill.

“How’d you meet Clint?” asked Steve, watching a couple walk by hand in hand.

Natasha smiled faintly, watching the same couple. “You didn’t read my file?”

“I’m not Tony,” Steve informed her gently.

Natasha licked the drops running down her cone. “He was sent to kill me. He was brilliant. The best match I’ve ever had. We ran through twelve cities in a matter of months. He tracked me, found me in every alias and every wig and every cover I could use. I stopped taking cases, just kept running. He finally caught me. And then he decided not to kill me.”

“Why?” asked Steve. Natasha knew the answer but that was between her and Clint. She shrugged and Steve accepted that as an answer. He said quietly, “You were apart when he was attacked by Loki in New Mexico, though.”

“The job requires it. We’re used to it,” she replied.

She did not tell him that California and Russia were the first missions she took apart from Clint in years and that Clint took New Mexico as penance for the fight that they had, the reason they took separate assignments. They were not the best at communication. Sometimes she forgot that she couldn’t play him, that he wasn’t a job. Sometimes, she looked at Clint and his bravery and his honesty and his heart on his sleeve and she did not get him. She couldn’t make sense of the reasons that kept him in her space, kept him glowering at her from across the room, kept him saying things that made her heart beat fast. Sometimes she didn’t understand why, after all these years, he still came home to her. She knew that she was gorgeous, but she also knew that the private Natasha, the one that Clint got, was thoroughly fucked up. She could go weeks without speaking to him, could do entire ops without letting him touch her, and he had the patience of a sniper. He could wait her out. Sometimes, being with Clint was like running through twelve cities again and finding out that he was still there at the end and being simultaneously confused and awed by him.

“And that’s what you’re doing right now,” Steve said, and Natasha paled when she realized she must have said some of that aloud. She covered her mouth and looked away, her icecream dripping onto her hand. Steve didn’t look at her, like he understood she couldn’t take being seen right now. He stared out over the park. “You’re trying to do the same thing for him. Waiting him out, being there in the end.”

Natasha got up and threw out the rest of her icecream. She stared at the drips on her hand. If Clint was there, he would have made a show of licking them off her hand, and then suggesting they get back to their apartment as quickly as possible. If Clint was there, she would have wanted to get back to her apartment. But right now, she was dreading going anywhere.

She looked at Steve who was still patiently licking his cone. She had a knack, she decided, for finding men who were too good for their own good. Even Tony. She replied softly, “It’s hard for me. I don’t do well with distance. I need to fight my way through problems, not walk away and ruminate on them.”

Steve looked at her then, and gave her a quiet smile, the smile she most appreciated from him. “We all do things we don’t want to do for people we love.”

Natasha looked over the park, watched a father toss a ball to his son. “Love is for children.”

“I know you don’t believe that,” Steve said, getting up and wiping off his hands with a napkin. He offered her one that she took gratefully.

She laughed sadly at him. “And how do you know that, Captain Rogers?”

“The look on your face when you talk about him,” Steve told her. He checked his phone. “Come on. We have enough time to finish the loop.”

By the time they get back to the Tower, Maria had texted Natasha. Natasha read it and then silently handed the phone over to Steve to read it.

_House empty. No prints. Security tapes are wiped. I’m sending you photos of the house to see if he took anything._

Steve read it and handed Natasha her phone back as the email comes through. Natasha looked at the screen and looked away. Tony appeared in the doorway, wiping his hands on a towel. He looked between the both of them and said, “Hey. What’s going on?”

“Barton showed in Chicago today,” Steve explained when Natasha gave him a nod. “He used one of their safe houses. SHIELD sent a team to bring him in but he was gone when they got there. They sent her photos to see if he took anything from the house.”

Tony’s hand wiping slowed and he tossed the towel to the side. He studied Natasha for a long moment and then yelled over his shoulder, “Banner!”

It took Bruce less than ten seconds to appear, looking confused and worried. “What?”

Tony’s eyes didn’t leave Natasha. “Spideygirl needs us to look at some photos with her.”

So they sat around her as Tony brought up the photos on a big screen in the kitchen. Bruce made Natasha tea and Steve held her hand. Natasha looked through every photo thoroughly, tapping a long thin finger against her lips, and stayed absolutely silent while Jarvis flipped through each photo. At the end, she stood up.

Tony looked at her expectantly. “What’d he take?”

“Who said he took anything?” She asked him.

Tony gave her a level look. “He took something. Trust me. I know.”

Natasha looked at him, then Bruce, then Steve, and then back at the first picture of their entry way. She walked up to the screen and pointed, her finger going thorugh the projection. She pointed to a small space on the table with a mirror. She said quietly, “Right there. The only photo we have of the two of us together when we weren’t using covers. The only photo we have of us together as just _us._ ”

She left the room and no one followed her.


	3. Chapter 3

Natasha left her apartment, exhausted and a little jetlagged. She had worked a six week long deep cover assignment in the Stans, as Tony had called them, and arrived back in at 4am. But she couldn’t sleep so she stayed up most of the night catching up on her favorite mediocre American cop shows. She needed to sleep but she knew that she needed a routine to sleep. She wasn’t sure where Steve was but Jarvis told her he wasn’t in the building when she woke so she couldn’t nag him to go for a run with her. She had showered, figuring she wasn’t going for a run, and dried her hair. She pulled on her favorite shirt, a faded black shirt with Archery spelled out in elements from the periodic table. She had bought it for Clint years ago, before they were partners, and stolen it back sometime after their first mission in Budapest. It smelled faintly like him, even after a hundred thousand washes. She slipped into jeans and got in the elevator, leaning against the side and studying the abysmal state of her nails.

The doors opened into the kitchen and she stepped into the room. She stopped dead in her tracks. Clint was sitting quietly at the table, reading the paper, while Tony stared at him, and Steve pretended not to stare at him, and Bruce quietly read his own paper. Bruce was the first to notice her, glancing up and then his lips tightened, slightly, and he glanced sideways at Clint. Steve noticed her next and almost snorted coffee out his nose. His reaction alerted Clint and Tony to her presence.

Clint’s hearing had never been great and a blast in Baghdad at the start of the war when they were the first operatives on the ground had taken out the rest of it. It had been almost ten years since he started wearing hearing aids and no matter what technology was in his ears, he still couldn’t hear her when she wasn’t deliberately making a clatter. She could see the black hearing aids over his ears now. They were new. He hadn’t always had black ones.

Tony said, a little edge to his voice, “Look, Natasha. Bird Boy came home to roost.”

Natasha walked by Tony’s chair, her eyes never leaving Clint. She snapped her fingers and held out her hand. Tony sighed, pulled a wallet from his pocket, and peeled off a crisp $100 bill. Natasha smiled and took it, tucking it into her back pocket. Clint’s eyes were a flinty gray as he watched her and she moved around the far side of the table, avoiding him, to pick up Steve’s empty plate. She took it to the counter and put two more pancakes on it. She put it back in front of Steve.

Natasha was the first to break their eerie silence. “Glad you knew your way home.”

“He’s like a homing pigeon. No matter where you drop him, he knows how to get home,” Tony spat, almost distastefully.

“Tony,” Bruce said quietly.

“This isn’t home to Clint,” Steve added softly. He shrugged at Natasha. “He’s never lived here.”

“She’s home,” Clint said clearly. His eyes were still on Natasha. He repeated again, slower this time. “She is home. To me.”

Natasha turned back to the sink and filled the kettle with water. She put it on top of the stove and started the heat. She kept her back to him. She heard him sigh.

“I leveled out,” he said quietly, and it was like it was only them in the room. She could hear her own heart beating. “You told me I had to level out.”

“But not alone!” she cried out, turning around. She pressed her hand to her mouth, like she could put her outburst back inside of her, regain her hard-fought and well-taught control. She calmed herself and said slowly, her eyes closed. “You never left me alone to level out. You should have let me…”

“You didn’t follow,” he answered simply and it wasn’t an accusation as it was an explanation. “And it took awhile and I’m not sure it would have been easier or shorter with you there.”

Sometimes Natasha wished that he wasn’t the type of person who cut straight to the chase. Sometimes, she wished that he were a verbose person, covered in purple prose and run on sentences and flowery language that disguised his true meaning. Sometimes, she wished he wasn’t the man that she knew and trusted. She trusted him because he never said anything he didn’t mean. But trust like that, it could always hurt her in return. And right now, it was a cold knife in her gut.

She turned back to the stove. He continued, like she hadn’t dismissed him with her body. “I had to convince myself that I was safe—for others, I mean. That Loki wasn’t in my head. I went everywhere, and nowhere, and I tried to trigger myself. Sometimes I was. Sometimes I wasn’t. And, Tasha--,”

“Don’t call me that,” she snapped automatically. “I don’t want you--,”

“—I had to know that of all people, I wouldn’t hurt—“

“—to be here. Go away. I want you to--,”

“—you, not like he said I would, not like I could have.”

“—stay away. You can’t just walk in and out of my life. You can’t just leave.”

They had raised their voices, higher and higher until they had both shut down. No one said anything in the silence, but no one left. Everyone wanted to witness this, or maybe they wanted to stay to protect her, or to protect Clint from her. But no one left. Natasha felt a shudder run through her body, flipping switches in her body. She gripped the countertop. She knew that Clint hated raised voices, hated confrontation. It was as wired into him as it was for her to hate locked doors within the apartment they shared. Every door was open. Every argument was quiet, and they were more likely to storm away from each other then to yell. She almost wanted to apologize to him.

The whistle from the kettle disturbed the silence. She turned off the heat and flipped the kettle open, pouring it into a cup. Her hand shook violently. When was the last time her hand shook? She wiped up the spilled water on the countertop with a sponge. She carefully made her tea, her hands still shaking.

“Natasha, please turn around,” Clint asked softly. She shook her head. She knew it was easier for him to read her lips when she was turned around. He said, “I didn’t think of it as leaving you.”

“Then what was it?” she asked, her hands folding around the hot mug.

“Coming home,” he answered simply, after a long pause. “Coming home to someone I love.”

She flinched and hot tea splashed over her hand. She bit her lip against the pain. She unfolded her hands from the mug and ran her burned right hand under the cold tap water. She turned around and studied him again. He looked older, but calm, and sure, the Clint she remembered, before Loki. There was none of the unsureness she sensed him before they fought for New York. This was a Clint who would not miss a shot with a grappling hook and give her a heart attack. This was a Clint who did not miss. He had leveled out, and he had done it without her. She felt off-balance, useless, and on the periphery of someone who had always made her his center.

“Chicago,” she demanded from him.

He flinched. “A reminder. That there was someone to come back down for.”

It was the first thing he had said that she could understand. She said quietly, “What happened in Prague?”

Clint watched her. “You needed me.”

She looked at the other guys who were watching her and him with unguarded interest. She looked at her tea. “I needed you more than just then, Clint. We all had to level out. We were all…compromised. Some of us more than others.”

Clint studied her, his gaze narrowed, like he was sighting down an arrow. “Do you want me to leave?”

“No.” She snapped, frustrated. She covered her face and said through her hands, “I want you to stay. But stay.”

“I can’t hear what you’re saying,” he snapped, equally frustrated.

“I want you to stay,” she cried, opening her hands. She threw her hands to the sky, away from her face. “I want you to stay. I want my partner back. I want to know you have my back and I want to come home to you. I don’t want to worry about whether you were dead or alive or whether you found someone—“

“Someone?” he echoed.

“—new. I want you.” She finished. She took her tea and she poured it out in the sink. “And you can’t do this. You can’t leave without word and then return without word after five months and tell me you love me and expect me to be okay with it. You can’t walk in and out.”

“You didn’t know,” he stated slowly.

She looked her burn, pulling at the skin a bit. It was beginning to blister. “I don’t understand it. It’s different.”

“Natasha,” he said quietly, and his chair pushed back.

She moved away, sliding down the counter. He echoed her motions, his hands open and palms facing her, like he was cornering a skittish horse. She turned away from him, shielding herself from him with her shoulder. He put his hands on either side of her on the counter, boxing her in. She could fight her way out but she knew that he knew that she wouldn’t do that. But he did not touch her. She could smell him now and he smelled familiar, like sky and the resin he used on his bow and grease from his cars and the type they used on the heavy joints of fire escapes. She shivered and turned slightly towards him. Their noses touched and they both froze. She heard, and felt, the shuddering of his breathing.

She whispered, her voice low but knowing at this distance, his hearing aids would pick it up. “I don’t believe you.”

“That I love you?” he asked cautiously.

She opened her eyes and found his gray ones watching her, searching her for clues. She said softly, “You left me.”

He nodded, slowly, his breath warm against her cheek. “I know. I needed to leave. And it was a mistake.”

“How can it be both a mistake and a necessity?” she asked him.

He smiled at her, small and crooked, and Clint all the way through. “Leveling out’s a lot like falling in love, sweetheart.”

“Don’t call me that,” she told him.

He ducked his head closer to hers and kissed her jaw. She shuddered at the way her body lit up under the contact. They were not the same. He reconnected through contact. She could not, but she could, for him. Only for him. He allowed her to fight her way through everything, and she had allowed him to leave. These were the things that lovers did. She understood the principle, understood the concept, and she lived it, but sometimes she did not know how she did it. She wanted to understand the mechanisms of love, what made him different, what made her different to him. She wanted to turn the concept of them inside out, examine it like the inner workings of a clock, but they were more abstract than even she was, as manufactured and artificial as she was.

He asked her, “What should I call you?”

“Natasha. My name is Natasha Romanov. Natasha Alianova Romanov Barton.” she told him, scrambling for some sense of sanity. She reached up and gripped his shirt front, pressing him back from her body. “You can’t—I need—Clint, stay.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” he promised her, and he pressed her back against the countertop, kissing her firmly. When they came up for air, he murmured, pressing his lips against the soft skin beneath her ear. “Are they still here?”

Natasha’s eyes fluttered open. Bruce and Steve were discreetly continuing with breakfast like there weren’t two spies making out in the kitchen. Tony was, naturally, watching them less discreetly. She laughed softly. “Yeah. They’re still here.”

“They were pretty fucking pissed at me when they found me here this morning,” he told her, his hands trailing down her hips. His hands slid up against the sliver of skin between her shirt and her pants. “Told me they’d kill me, actually.”

She smiled. “They’ve been good to me.”

“Good,” he said. He kissed her neck. “I’m sorry, Natasha.”

She wanted to tell him she was too but she did not know what she was apologizing for, so she carefully extracted herself from his touch. She ran her fingers across his chest, giving him an apologetic look as she passed. “If you’re going to stay, you’ll need a cup of coffee. I know how you are in the morning without coffee.”

“I liked the Field of Dreams addition in Prague. Finally proof that you did, in fact, not sleep through that movie,” Clint said with a satisfactory smile to her.

She pointed at him, “Careful.”

Steve said, his voice falsely low, from the table, without looking up, “Don’t worry, Natasha. If he goes AWOL on you again, I’ll hunt him down myself.”

“Can you roast a hawk?” asked Tony. He typed something onto his tablet. “It says you can. Just like any other bird. You hear that, Katniss?”

Bruce snorted softly and rolled his eyes at Tony. He met Natasha’s eyes. He mouthed at her, “All okay?”

She nodded, slowly, and watched Clint watching them out of the side of her eye. He looked conflicted about something, but he didn’t hide it from her. In the past, he would have. Now, he watched her with the conflict all over his face. She went back to making his coffee. He meant what he said. He never said anything he didn’t mean. And if leveling out was like falling in love, then maybe that’s what happened to her all those years ago. A knot unraveled in her chest and she carefully started the coffee machine, leaning against the counter and listening to the familiar and satisfactory murmur of the water boiling.

“Tasha,” Clint said quietly. He switched into Romanian abruptly, his rough accent carving around the sloping words like he was slicing into the language instead of letting it surface naturally. “I love you.”

She shook her head, watching the coffee begin to drip down. These were things they did not say. These were things they knew but did not say. She knew what she felt for Clint, knew what these last twelve years had built up inside of her, like a small house she could retreat to within herself, knowing she was never there alone. She knew what he felt for her, but they never said it. Saying it would make it real and they couldn’t afford for it to be real. They were partners who trusted each other above anything else. Partners who slept together. Partners who knew each other. They were partners.

“You know how you read those articles and they tell you that the survivors always call their loved ones and tell them that they love them? Because they ran out of time? And they didn’t realize how precious life was?” He switched into Chinese.

Her mind raced to keep up with the language shift, and with what he was saying. She said in Tagalog, “We have been in life threatening situations every single moment we’ve known each other. You have known and seen how precious life is.”

He shrugged, lowering his gaze to her hands on the counter. “We never say it, though.”

She looked at him. He had spoken in English. She said, gently, in Russian. “We have never left before.”

He didn’t take his eyes off her hands. His voice was, for the first time, accusatory, and using her mother tongue. “Haven’t we?”

She knew what he meant by the way he said it. He meant, _we fought, we fought about leaving the job, about being compromised, about stupid shit like whose turn it was to wash the dishes and you took an assignment in California babysitting Stark so I went to New Mexico. You didn’t even come to say goodbye before you went to Russia. I found out from Hill that you had gone to the place that sent you backwards in your mind. It was my job to be there for you, it was my job to ground you, and you didn’t let me do it. And I stayed in New Mexico as penance for the things you did and the things I did and the things we never say. And then there was the Chitauri._ He meant, _even when you didn’t leave, sometimes we left each other. Sleepless nights, nightmares we don’t talk about, victims we couldn’t save but we never forget, the doors slamming and echoing, the silence when we make love._ He meant, _it is the way I take on and off my hearing when I don’t want to hear you and the way I don’t drink but sometimes, you do. It is the way you scream at me and use that as a weapon. It’s the way I yell at you in Russian, the way I let myself watch you get dressed for a job. It’s the way we use each other._ He meant, _it is who we are. We are always leaving. We are never coming home._

He meant, _maybe this time could be different._

She echoed his words aloud, choosing French. “Cette foi-ci, nous pourrions etre different.” _This time, we could be different._

Clint tipped his head. He signed in ASL, “I love you.” He didn’t use the slang sign. He signed every word.

She watched his fingers bending around the shape of the words, marveling that hands could also be a language. She looked at the coffee which was full. She reached into the cabinet for a mug for him, found one that said, “My archer can do it in the dark,” that Tony had gotten her not long after moving to the Tower, before they knew Clint was actually gone. No one had used it. She set it on the counter and poured him a cup of coffee. He would, if necessary, drink it black, but if he had access to cream and sugar, Clint liked both in heavy amounts. She moved around Clint to the fridge, took out the half and half, and poured a shot into the mug. She added two tablespoons of sugar and stirred it slowly.

She handed it to him and he accepted it. She rubbed her damaged nails against the edge of the counter. She glanced at the table. Jarvis wouldn’t translate anything she said for Tony, they had an understanding, but Tony spoke almost fluent French and Chinese. His Russian was passable for business conversations. Bruce spoke French, Chinese, and strangely, Bulgarian. She never understood that one. Steve spoke French and German. His Russian was coming along. Clint’s languages were almost as good as Natasha’s. Most thought he couldn’t hold a candle to her, but they liked to cultivated that belief. It allowed him to overhear much more than she was allowed to overhear. It was, as they said, a useful rumor.

She chose Finnish. “I hear you. I…I know what I know, Clint. What I feel is harder for me.”

His brow furrowed. He used Finnish less often than she did. “I know.”

She picked at a cuticle. “You are not asking me to say it in return.”

“No,” he said simply. He found Finnish in his mind, his cadence and accent perfecting as he went along. “I know you love me. We’ve always loved each other. This is my epiphany to say it. I’m not asking you to carry the epiphany, just to hold the results of it.”

She looked at him through her lashes. He was completely serious. She said quietly, “I have never deserved you, Clint Barton.”

His laugh was dry, short, and sad, a lifetime held in a burst of air. He shook his head and sipped his coffee. “You waited for me, Natasha. You hate waiting.”

“I do.”

He looked at her, and it took her breath away, everything he wasn’t saying, everything those three words didn’t carry with them, didn’t explain. He put down his cup of coffee and reached out, brushing a stray curl out of her face. It fell back exactly where it had been. He gave her a smile, a real one. “That’s enough for me.”

She gave him her own small smile, one that made his eyes light up with happiness. She said in English, “You found the word for epiphany in Finnish.”

“For you, darling,” he promised her.

She shook her head. “Don’t call me that.”


	4. Chapter 4

Tony’s Christmas fundraiser was the source of a great deal of consternation amongst the Tower’s occupants. Bruce flat out refused to go until Tony promised him that there would be people there willing to fund Bruce’s latest project, something that had to do with particle physics that Natasha did not understand. Steve had been in turns excited and saddened by the idea of a black tie affair. Pepper had extradited herself from business affairs long enough to come back to the Tower and help everyone get fitted for a tux. Clint had lost weight since their last black tie mission. Natasha glared at him from the corner during his fitting.

He shot her an amused look. “If you wanted to see me in my skivvies, all you had to do was ask. You didn’t have to come to a suit fitting.”

She snapped, “You are thin.”

He rolled his eyes at her. “Tasha, I’m working out half as much as I used to. I’ve lost muscle.”

She frowned at him, chewing on her nails. “Don’t lie to me.”

Pepper raised her eyebrows and said to Natasha, “I don’t think he had any body fat to lose.”

Natasha turned her fierce glare on Pepper. She said sourly, “Don’t defend him. He’s lost weight. He’s not sleeping, he’s not eating right. He’s not at the top of his game.”

Pepper seemed to be fighting to maintain her temper. “Ms Romanov.”

Clint snorted. “Only call her that if you want to die.”

Pepper didn’t miss a beat. “Natasha. It’s only been 8 months since New York.”

“He’s not out of shape because of a little alien invasion, Miss Potts,” Natasha replied smoothly, her eyes going back to Clint. “He’s wallowing.”

“Wallowing!” exclaimed Clint, walking away from the tailor who scowled at them. He planted his hands on his hips in front of her. “Wallowing. Really.”

She raised an eyebrow and nodded. “Yes. Wallowing.”

“How am I wallowing?” he demanded.

“You haven’t taken a single solo mission. You refuse to spar me. You aren’t working out as much as you used to and I don’t know why. You skip your psych appointments,” Natasha ticked off the offenses on her fingers. She gestured to his body. “And it shows. You’ve lost weight.”

Clint glared at her. She glared back at him. He looked away and then back at her. His mouth twitched. Then he was grinning at her. “You’re fussing.”

“I am not fussing. You are wallowing.”

“Kitten, you’re fussing. It’s adorable and darling, don’t get me wrong but—“

“I think I am getting you wrong and if you call me Kitten again—“

Clint shut her up with his mouth. Natasha tried not to melt under his tongue. She gave it a valiant effort. She failed. He let her go only when he was sure she was pliant in his hands. She knew his game. He whispered to her. “You’re fussing because you’re worried about me going in public for the first time where all anyone’s going to talk about is New York.”

She shuddered. “We don’t have to go.”

Clint kissed the corner of her mouth. “Natashka, we’re going. I owe Stark.”

“For what?”

“For that dress you’re going to be wearing.”

She rolled her eyes. “You can’t go to repay him for something I wouldn’t wear if we just stayed home. We should stay home.”

“You love getting dressed up,” Clint reminded her.

She ran her fingers along a scar across his abdomen. “I like having you with me more.”

She knew she was transparent. She knew she was worried he would be triggered and leave again. And part of her knew that she was being irrational. Since he came home two months prior, they had tested his recovery in any way she could devise. He still had nightmares, but they were the same nightmares he had before Loki, and he still had trouble sleeping, which he always did before Loki. The only difference was when he woke from a nightmare, he demanded that she tell him his eye color and he wouldn’t sleep with her if a nightmare got particularly bad. Considering how her leveling out process had gone, both times, and he had been there both times, his was rather steady and reasonable. Natasha trusted it as far as she could throw Clint which was decently far, but not far enough.

Clint was quiet, and then he caught her hands, lowered them. And then he tilted her chin up to look at him. He looked serious. “I’m not leaving. And if it is too much, then we will go home.”

She pressed her lips together and then said, “Promise me you will tell me if we need to go home.”

Clint met her eyes. “I promise.”

He didn’t say things he didn’t mean. Natasha nodded and gestured with her hand, dismissing him back to the tailor. Clint gave Pepper a wink and the rest of the fitting went without a hitch. As they were walking out, they ran into Tony who pointed at Natasha and said, “Hill says she needs to borrow a pair of shoes.”

Natasha nodded. “I’ll bring her a pair.”

“Jarvis, please inform our esteemed deputy director that Natalie Richardson is bringing her heels.” Tony breezed past them and planted a kiss on Pepper’s cheek. “Miss Potts. Excellent. I’m confused. Am I wearing a bowtie or a tie to this and how do you tie these things?”

“How do you manage without me?” she asked.

Natasha tried to hide her smile as Clint and her walked down the hallway. Clint noticed though, and demanded to know what was so funny. She waved her hand slightly. “Nothing. It’s just that Tony can tie either of those things in his sleep. I think the tailor’s about to be scandalized.”

Clint wrinkled his nose. “That is not what I needed as a mental image.”

“You’re welcome.” She lifted up on her toes to kiss him softly. “I’m going to go get ready at Maria’s. See you there.”

Four hours later, Natasha was about to drive Maria Hill to drink. Heavily. And the event had barely started. The opening remarks had been said, and the bar was open, but people were still arriving, trickling in, dripping in diamonds and furs and dresses that cost more than Natasha made in a month. She, however, was glowering at anyone who looked like they wanted to talk to her. She checked her cellphone a half a dozen times. Maria watched her with a raised eyebrow.

“He’ll come,” Maria told her, voice sounding like she doubted Natasha’s sanity would show along with Clint.

“He’s late,” snapped Natasha.

Maria snorted. “Do you know who we’re talking about? Has he ever shown up on time?”

Natasha paused, thought about that, and then gave her friend a quick smile. “No. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Maria told her. She gestured to the dress and shoes. “Besides, when he shows and I can say hi, tell him that he can’t miss any more appointments, etc, I can go home. Being in a dress this long is going to kill me.”

“Doubtful,” Natasha replied casually.

She kept her eyes on the door. Maria was wearing a knee length black empire-waisted sequined dress. It was just on this side of appropriate that she could introduce herself as a deputy director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, her light cover. Natasha had on a floor length gown with a blue bodice and a black skirt. It was straight to the floor, largely unadorned though her curves did enough for the dress. She wore simple jewelry and kept her hair up. She was trying not to stand out. Steve and Tony were the public face of the Avengers. A great deal could go wrong if Natasha and Clint were. Bruce just abhorred public attention and his…well, the Other Guy wasn’t the public’s favorite. He tended to be the reason the Avengers’ insurance rates were so high.

Steve slipped over to them and only Natasha’s warning glare reminded him they were under light cover. He reached out and shook both of their hands, introducing himself. Natasha gave him a quick smile. She murmured, “Good job.”

He gave her a look and asked them both in a low voice, “Doesn’t it drive you crazy that you have to lie just to come to a party?”

Maria and Natasha exchanged looks and shrugged. Maybe it should have bothered them, but it didn’t. They were used to it. It was a light cover anyway. No one went digging from this type of party. Too many thorough background checks on the guests who were not Avengers. They made idle chit chat with Steve for awhile. Natasha’s attention stayed on the door when she finally saw Clint making his way into the room with Bruce next to him. Both of them looked thoroughly disgruntled and Clint was checking in with Bruce before patting him on the shoulder and scanning the room. Natasha moved ever so slightly, and the motion caught his eye. He blinked, stared at her, smiled, and moved across the room.

“You look beautiful,” he whispered when he reached her, kissing her quickly. He kissed Maria’s cheek and whatever she whispered in his ear made him grin. He stood next to Natasha, gave Steve an appraising look, and introduced himself as Charlie Richardson.

Clint and Natasha made idle talk with guests throughout the night. They worked in foreign diplomacy, they were attaches, they moved frequently, no they couldn’t talk about their work, you know how it is, especially with those superheroes there. Clint hated talking to people, but people loved to talk to Natasha more than she liked to talk to them, so he hovered at her elbow obligingly.

“Where’d you two meet?” asked one woman keenly. She batted eyes at Clint. “Seems like there probably wasn’t time out there in the field for much romance.”

Natasha felt irritation grow in her gut. Clint answered smoothly. “Budapest, actually. And for a woman like Natalie, you find time.”

A girl who was college aged and dripping in jewels let out a dramatic sigh. Natasha remembered that her father was an oil tycoon. She elbowed Natasha and giggled, “Snatching up the romantic older men. Way to go, you.”

It was the third remark at their age difference which was significant but not nearly as much as it looked. Natasha could hardly retort that the Red Room had made it nearly impossible for her to age as quickly as Clint did but the resentment was building. One of the girls’ friends tittered and agreed. Natasha checked with Clint under her lashes. He hated the remarks about his age more than she did. He looked more amused than anything.

“Mr. Richardson, do you mind if I dance with your wife?” asked one man who had been staring at Natasha for the better part of thirty minutes.

“I have two left feet,” Clint told him seriously. It was a lie. Clint could dance better than anyone Natasha knew.

“Oh I doubt it,” tittered the older woman. She leaned forward and rested her hand on his upper arm. Clint flinched. So did Natasha. She gave him an appraising look. “Richard could teach your wife to dance and I could teach you. I’m sure Richard wouldn’t mind?”

“I mind,” Natasha said loudly. Clint gave her a surprised look. Usually she made it part of her duty at these things to dance with anyone who asked, but then, they rarely went to affairs outside of work. She leaned forward, tugged Clint by his jacket towards her, and kissed him, running her tongue on the inside of his bottom lip. She released him, breathless, and said in Hungarian, “You are mine and I am yours.”

He answered in English, his eyes dancing. “I never had a doubt.”

She said sweetly, “Would you like a drink? I’m going to refill mine.”

He shrugged. “Whatever you’re drinking.”

She knew the answer. Clint did not drink. She moved past him, past the staring eyes, and she deliberately ran her fingers across his chest, letting them trail over his body. She could feel his abdomen tighten as she passed him. She gave him a glance over her shoulder. He was amused, and confused, and a little worried. Everything played out over his face, but only to her. She knew him better than anyone else. She rarely allowed physical affection that was not a means to an end, but this was not without its benefit. She ordered another straight vodka for her and a tonic for him. She made her way back to him and pressed his drink into his hand. He slipped an arm around her waist, nuzzled into her hair, and whispered under the guise of affection. “Jealous, love?”

She sipped her vodka demurely. She murmured back. “We’re not working. I shouldn’t have to be oogled at by other men or dance with them or worry about how we look to anyone else.”

He kissed her temple. “You’re always going to be looked at by other men, Nat. It’s a consequence of being as beautiful as you are. But no, you don’t have to dance with anyone tonight. We’re just us.”

Natasha thought about what Steve said. She said quietly, “We’re us, but we’re not.” 

He knew what she was talking about. He gestured to her drink. “Drink that.”

“Why?”

“I want to dance with you and it requires both of your hands. I can’t finish it for you.”

“You could, you just won’t.”

“No, I can’t,” he said simply and downed his tonic water.

Natasha obligingly downed her vodka, shook her head slightly and set the cup down on a nearby table. Clint cupped her face gently and kissed her softly. He pulled back in surprise, running his tongue over his lips. “Christ, was that straight vodka?”

“Yes,” she murmured, kissing him again.

He shook his head, pulled her onto the dance floor. Over his shoulder, she could see the man who had asked her to dance staring at them. Clint could dance. So could she. But this was just a slow dance. This was just his arm holding her steadily against him, their hands joined together, her hand flat against his chest, her head nestled against him. She closed her eyes, pretending it was just them on the floor. Clint’s heart beat steadily underneath her hand. She loved to feel it. Strong. Steady. Him. Home. Her. His hands were steady (when were they not) and he smelled like the lotion he used to keep from being windburnt on the job. She relaxed into the rhythm of the dance and the closeness of his body.

He said quietly, “Keep dancing, but what are the chances that you have friends at this affair?”

She forced her body not to tense at his words. She tilted her face slightly, her lips hitting the edge of his jaw. “Who do you say?”

“I may have a positive ID on Sergei Yhirkov.”

“Tell me you’re not saying that just to say that last name again,” Natasha whispered back.

She felt his muscles pull back as he smiled. He held her tighter. “It’s a funny last name, but I wouldn’t be joking about it. Let’s turn.”

And slowly he spun her. She watched over his shoulders until he stopped and her eyes casually scanned the crowd, her hand sliding over his shoulder. She found Yhirkov. He was chatting with someone from Stark Industries that Natasha recognized. He was wearing a press pass and drinking what Natasha knew was going to be vodka. She and her Russian friends tended to be predictable.

She turned her head. “That’s Sergei.”

“Think he’s made you yet?”

“Oh definitely,” Natasha murmured. She watched Yhirkov glance up. They made eye contact and the second in command Russian arms dealer inclined his head slightly and then spread open his hand at his hip. Natasha felt relief for the first time since she met Yhirkov a decade ago. She sighed. “He says he’s unarmed and I can’t see anything. Probably just ankles and knives. He’s not here for us. He’s intel gathering.”

“High up just to gather intel.”

Natasha was quiet for a moment and whispered back, “It was probably for you. He’s the only in the cartel that can give a positive ID on you. They wanted to know if you were alive.”

“Good. They’ve got their positive ID. The next time I see him, I’m killing him,” said Clint. He tightened his grip on Natasha, almost painfully. “He’s unforgivable.”

Yhirkov’s group had been the one to kidnap Natasha and then sell her back to the Red Room before Clint got to her. SHIELD had traded to get her back but she had to be deprogrammed all over again. It had been a very long summer in Finland for the both of them and not the most pleasant levelings out that Natasha had experienced.

Natasha replied under her breath. “I appreciate my knight in shining armor, but not tonight, Clint. It’s just us. Yhirkov doesn’t care about Natalie and Charlie.”

Clint was silent for the rest of the song. He gave her a stubborn look. “We’re taking one of Stark’s armored cars home and only after I check it for explosives.”

“Okay,” she agreed.

He pressed the back of his hand to her forehead. “Are you sick? You just agreed to a security measure.”

She rolled her eyes but smiled. “I want to get home in one piece.”

“I always find it’s a good way to end the day. Have plans for tomorrow?”

She pulled him by his bowtie back down to her mouth. When she was done kissing him, she whispered, “Plans for tonight.”

He said hoarsely, “Car. Stark car. Check for explosives. Home.”

“Okay,” she agreed.

“Now,” he said instantly, staring at her with dark eyes. “As long as you keep saying yes to things I say, I want to take advantage of it.”

She gave him an amused look and he added dryly, “Look, if you were married to you, you’d understand.”

She laughed. She ran her hands through his hair, over his hearing aids, down his face. She whispered, “Take me home.”

There were no explosives. They returned to the Stark Tower safely. They made it upstairs before ripping off each other’s clothing. There was more than one way to level out. There was more than one way to fall in love. And when they lay tangled together afterwards, Natasha propped herself up on an elbow. She pressed her palm to his chest, felt his heart beating, watched the way he quietly watched her.

She said quietly, “I began leveling out the moment I met you, Clint Barton.”

He stayed absolutely still, but beneath her hand, his pulse jumped. She continued, never taking her eyes off of his. If she was going to say this, she wanted to see him listen to her say it. She wanted to say all of it, _I began falling in love with you before I met you. You chased me without giving up on me. You were the first person who thought I was worth anything in this world besides the blood I could spill. I knew I loved you in Budapest. I stayed up all night to make sure you didn’t stop breathing on me. I wiped your blood off on my pants and some of it, I realized, some of the blood on you was my own from where you had stopped my bleeding. I knew that I loved you when I came back from Sao Paulo and you put me in a car and drove me to the wilderness and we stayed there until I came back down. I knew I loved you when I came too in Finland. I knew that I loved you when they said you were compromised. I knew I loved you when you came back to me then. I knew I loved you when I let you leave. I love you._

But those were a hundred words she couldn’t say, not yet. She said quietly, “I fell in love with you in Paris.” _The first city._ “I’ve loved you every morning after I didn’t fall asleep alone.” _Do you remember Budapest?_ “I loved you when you took me to your mother’s grave.” _She loved you too, Clint. Do you realize how easy you are to love?_ “I didn’t really know, Clint. Not until you took that photo from the house in Chicago.” _You said to remind you that you had someone to come back down to. Did you know that photo reminded me that I had someone to surface to every morning?_ “I never loved you more than that moment, when I realized that’s the only thing you took.”

“Not the only thing,” Clint interrupted, his eyes not leaving hers. His heart was pounding. “I took your matroshka dolls. From your drawer. The ones you bought in Ekaterinaberg.”

Natasha closed her eyes when she kissed him, breaking the spell. She murmured, “My wedding rings are inside those dolls.”

He whispered, brushing her hair off her shoulder. “I know.”

She whispered back, “I want to wear them.”

He sat up, watching her, trying to decide if she was serious or not. She met his eyes steadily. He looked unsure but he slipped out of bed, walked—and no, Natasha didn’t mind the view—to his drawers. He pulled open the top drawer and under a pile of tshirts, he pulled out a red and black and blue painted matroshka doll. He padded over to the bed quietly and slid back into bed, folding his legs underneath him. He quietly handed her the doll. Natasha sat up in bed with him, sitting crosslegged, and she began to dismantle the doll. She took apart the big one, then the next one, then the medium one, then the small one, and inside the small one, was a gold band and a thin gold band with a sapphire set on it, diamonds flanking it.

Clint reached in, pulling out both rings. He turned them over in his fingers, studying them. He took her left hand and slid the sapphire ring onto her ring finger. He slid the gold band on second. Natasha stared at her fingers, barely recognizing them. Clint reached to his bedside stand and pulled out the gold chain he usually wore underneath his shirt. His wedding ring hung from it. He unclasped the chain and slid the ring off of it. Natasha picked out of his palm and turned it over, as he had her rings. On the inside of the rings they had had inscribed the Russian for “There was—there wasn’t”. Natasha had taught Clint that line early in their partnership. It was a Russian phrase meaning, “Whatever this brings, we can handle it," or, "What will be will be."

She slid the ring onto his finger, and met his eyes. She said quietly, “Until death do us part.”

He lifted her hand and kissed her palm, the back of her hand, the tips of every finger. He kissed her mouth. He whispered, “If there’s anything after this world, Natasha Alianova Romanov Barton, I will love you then too.”

She lay back down on the pillows, pulling the quilt over herself. She pat his pillow with her hand sleepily. “There’s nothing after this world, Clint. This is all we have.”

“Mm,” he said thoughtfully, sliding down next to, pulling her close to him. He kissed her, sloppily, messily, grinning. “Then I better do a damn good job of loving you now.”

She laughed against his mouth, which trailed lower. “I love you.”

He rolled over, pulling her on top of him. He kissed her again. “Sleep, love.”

She pushed upright on him, looking at him with alarm. “I forgot about Yhirkov.”

Clint sighed. “We need to work on your pillow talk.”

Natasha rolled her eyes at him. “I should probably let Hill know that –“

“I am sure,” Clint said firmly, “that Hill saw him too. And if she didn’t, he’s gone already. We’ll tell her in the morning. Natasha. Sleep.”

She relented, curling up half sprawled across him. She closed her eyes. He whispered in Russian, “I love you.” It was the last thing she heard before she fell asleep, the happiest she had been in a very long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yhirkov's name comes from a recent Youtube video I watched by John Green. Apparently it's a soccer/football player's name? I'm amused. I couldn't help but give that to Clint. He needs to smile.
> 
> Byla ne byla is the Russian phrase they had inscribed on their rings. It's the equivalent of what will be will be or que sera sera.


End file.
